The Order of Forms
Realism, Formalism, and Social Space
- Contents
- Review Quotes

Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Order of Forms: Mathematic, Aesthetic, and Political Formalisms
1. The Realist Blueprint: For a Formalist Theory of Literary Realism
2. The Set Theory of Wuthering Heights: Realism, Antagonism, and the Infinities of Social Space
3. The Limits of Bleak House
4. Symbolic Logic on the Social Plane of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
5. Obscure Forms: The Social Geometry of Jude the Obscure
6. States of Psychoanalysis: Formalization and the Space of the Political
Conclusion: Sustaining Forms
Notes
Bibliography
Index
“Kornbluh anchors her brilliant and challenging book in the 19th-century realist novel but goes well beyond those confines to argue forcefully for the political dynamism and durability of forms and formalisms in our time. . . . In its formidable push toward abstraction, its utopian striving for collectivity, and its insistence on building new futures rather than dwelling in the past, The Order of Forms often feels like a study of 19th-century culture in high-modernist mode.”
Literature and Literary Criticism: British and Irish Literature | General Criticism and Critical Theory
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